Quoting a study conducted in collaboration with Yale, it said that more than 65 percent of people who receive advance flood warnings take action to protect themselves and their assets. It said Google is working to launch a new forecasting model to double the lead time so that people have an extra day or so to prepare in case of impending floods. It said the alert is available in Hindi, Bengali and seven other local languages.
The company is also partnering with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to build to deliver alerts to people who don’t have smart phones to receive the alerts directly.
The company uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse historical data to predict flood in the river basins. Google launched its flood forecasting pilot programme in Patna in 2018.
By Rajesh Jha